Switching from Feedburner to MailChimp for blog subscriptions

Those of you who subscribe to blogs—thank you for supporting writers!—will notice a few changes in how some of your subscriptions are delivered, and this blog is no exception. With Google Reader’s closing up shop, the future of the popular RSS delivery and tracking service Feedburner is in doubt, and many bloggers are finding alternatives to Feedburner for subscription services, especially email subscriptions.

Is RSS really on its way out? It seems unlikely, but Feedburner is another story (RSS feeds exist apart from Feedburner—Feedburner just makes it easier to track and manage subscriptions). Like many other bloggers, I am making the switch from Feedburner now, before the issue may be forced upon me.

Among the many available alternatives, I’ve chosen MailChimp. It’s free for the number of subscriptions I have (and I’m willing to pay their fees if I get more), offers a lot of customization, and has a shallow learning curve.

What does this mean for you?

If you are an email subscriber, you don’t have to do anything. You will notice, however, that, beginning with this post, the emails will have a different format (one I am still tweaking). You also now have the options to indicate how often you want to receive emails, whether daily (if any new posts have been published) or as a weekly digest. Update your profile and options here.

If you aren’t sure if you are subscribed, but want to be sure to receive email updates, go ahead and sign up. You won’t receive duplicates as long as you use the same email address you have used previously.

As always, I thank you for taking the time in your busy days to stop by. The “living part” of being a writer these days (see quotation, below) is far more complicated than when I first began writing cookbook reviews 20 years ago, but the changing times also allow for a greater personal connection to readers, for which I’m grateful.

One change I’ve made to the website recently is a daily quotation. This quotation is one of my favorites, from Heather Sellers, author of Page after Page:

“If you love writing, it helps you stay in a good mood, a happy mood. Writing helps you know who you are, and how you think, and what you need. For many of us, it’s not just a way to express, impress, or vent, it’s a whole spiritual practice. The stuff you have to do to get good at writing is the exact same stuff you do when you want a relationship—with a lover, a parent, a child—to go well. It’s how you become a better, healthier, more balanced person—it’s the same work, this work we have to do to become ‘real’ writers.